Saturday, January 30, 2016

Yesterday afternoon I completed my one-month college
teaching gig by grading the budding mystery novels my dozen students had
revised and re-revised over the past three weeks.Who would have guessed werewolves were still
so popular?Now it’s time for me to get
off campus before they get to see their grades. :) No, not the
werewolves.

It’s been a hectic four weeks—teaching two-and-a-half hours
virtually every weekday, spending eight hours each day critiquing the new
writing, and additional hours preparing for the next day’s lecture.Oh, yes, and then there’s that little matter
of Andreas Kaldis novel #8 due February 1st. My, Lord, that’s MONDAY!Not to mention a Sunshine Noir short story promised to some folks who
hang around this site.

But, that will all work out, I’m sure.

I’d like to say I feel at peace with the world…I certainly
feel I’m blessed to have spent time laboring among the world’s best hope for
Peace—Teachers, God bless them.But having
just jumped back into the midst of world news, my disposition on the state of
our planet has not improved.

Forget about the US Presidential races, that’s a plague on
everyone’s house courtesy of our Media-Politico Complex.May they reap what they sow, though sadly we
voters who bow to the charlatans’ siren songs will pay the greatest prices.

Still, that’s not what’s fired me up. It’s been that way for
way too many election cycles to get me riled up again.

What has me fuming is the holier than though attitude of the
European Union on a subject that’s only gotten worse since I last
wrote about it.

Now anyone who knows me realizes I am hardly a fan of how
Greece’s governments (that’s plural) have handled things over the last
you-pick-the-number-of years, but what the EU is doing to make Greece the
scapegoat for the EU’s utterly dysfunctional, unrealistic immigration processes
is unconscionable.

Figures for first 22 days of 2016

What the EU faces today has been anticipated for decades, but
most member states’ methods of preparing for this inevitable migration can be
summed up in a single word: NIMBY. Not in my back yard—unless of course they
needed laborers to work in their yards.

Sound familiar? Yes, the US has it’s own potboiler of a
situation, but try as they might, states of the US cannot set their own
immigration policies.

EU member-states apparently can, or at least are acting as if
they can.But rather than facing up to
the consequences of not planning for the long predicted stream of refugees rushing
into Europe for safety and economic opportunity, the EU choses to cast its
fickle finger of blame on its most financially strapped, politically vulnerable
member, Greece. And just to make it
suffer a lot more, the EU threatens to deny Greece’s tourist dependent economy
the benefit of passport free travel between Greece and its Schengen member
states.

A country of eleven million in the midst of a worsening Great
Depression is expected to carry the load of processing and protecting an annual
flow of immigrants equal to seven-percent of its nation’s population.And it’s not as if the faucet’s in Greece,
but rather you’ll find it in the land of its historic enemy, Turkey, where
human traffickers are making billions each year off the dreams of those seeking
safety in Europe.

Still the EU finds it easier to simply blame Greece for not
turning off a fire hose held in another’s hands, and dismiss as inadequate the
efforts of everyday Greeks and volunteers from around the world doing what the
EU should be doing—behavior that may yield a Nobel Peace Prize nomination for
those working on the ground in Greece.

Frankly, I think the EU’s afraid.Its members’ nationalism is showing, and its
long unstated but simple plan for protecting its mainland members from the
onslaught of immigration is no longer working.

And what was that plan? Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis
described it succinctly a half dozen years ago: “[EU] Member states kept
returning immigrant asylum seekers to Greece claiming that, as their original
EU entry point, by law they’re a Greek problem—as if Greece were the European Union’s immigration filter trap.”

Yep, that’s precisely how the EU has long regarded
Greece.But that filter trap was built
to accommodate the flow from a garden hose, not a fire hose. And trying to channel the flow into your
neighbor’s house rather than dealing with it at its source will only flood you
both.

I think it’s way past time for the EU to call in a
professional plumber capable of fixing its household’s outdated, ineffective
system; professionals capable of addressing the problems at their source.
Otherwise, man the lifeboats, EU, for the water will only keep coming.

9 comments:

Entirely too many people seem to think that the world has always been as it was when they were born, and SHOULD remain that way forever. We flicker like fireflies in a hurricane, yet think that all of existence is a mountain of granite. The really sad thing is the behavior engendered by the fear that our light will get blown out by the hurricane's wind, and that all the other twinkling lights about us are of no importance.

Well said, Jeff and Evka. The bitter part is that no politician will do anything because all decisions are based on how it is perceived by voters in the next hour. Only a few take the long view - the next week.

Oh, this is so awful. Yes, the Greek people are exemplary and should be emulated throughout Europe for their true humanitarianism. They are the light in the midst of ridiculous, reactionary nationalism.

Well, I could say that the EU countries could stop bombing countries from which people are fleeing -- and could send a lot more food and other aid.

If the militarism doesn't stop, people will keep fleeing. But meanwhile, the EU countries should stop the nationalists from influencing policies and aid the migrants. They're all human beings and should be treated as such.

And, then, back to the politicians-nationalist complex over here. I can't watch it. And I can also add that it's also anti-woman as they're using Planned Parenthood as a punching bag, an organization that provides medical care to nearly 3 million low-income people a year.

Jeff, how well you have described this issue. In this existential test, the EU shows its tragic flaw. Our US Federal/State is imperfect, but it functions with our laws and judiciary system. The EU doesn't have a legal system in place to handle a crisis--social or economic, in a fair way. It's frightening to think a the possible consequences.

Thanks, Sis. Nationalism over immigration is the most serious threat of unravelling the EU. And those most anxious to preserve the Union (hmm, sound familiar) seem prepared to do anything to save it...perceived at the moment as paying billions in veritable "blackmail" to Turkey, while using Greece as its whipping boy for the sins of its mainland members.